THE MEAN SEASON

After Irma, Florida evacuees contemplate return

'I don't want to run into closed roads'

Published: 09/12/2017 at 2:56 PM

(ASSOCIATED PRESS) — ATLANTA — Thanks to reconnaissance by a neighbor who stayed behind, Pam Szymanksi knows Hurricane Irma blew out the living room window of her southwest Florida home, but she isn’t sure when she’ll get to see the damage for herself.

“All I know is we have to check out of here tomorrow, because they’re booked,” she said Monday, sitting in the lobby of a downtown Atlanta hotel where she arrived with her mother, two children and two dogs. A hotel reservation in Valdosta, Georgia, is next, Szymanksi said, but that’s still 350 miles (563 kilometers) from their home in Fort Myers.

“I don’t want to run into closed roads,” she said, “but I want to get home and start cleaning up.”